World News Quick Take

Agencies

CANADA

IKEA monkey finds fame

A stylishly attired monkey became an instant Internet celebrity, and triggered an animal welfare investigation, when it was found wandering in a furniture store car park. The months-old rhesus macaque, named Darwin, spent the night at an animal shelter in Toronto after he was found wandering around an IKEA lot wearing a sheepskin coat on Sunday afternoon. Darwin apparently opened his crate and the door of his owner’s vehicle and went for a stroll. However, his adventure did not stop there. Snap-happy observers took photographs of the cute critter and posted them online and Darwin immediately became a viral sensation on social media. His image was pasted into mockups of the IKEA catalogue, atop Toronto’s CN Tower, in parliament seated next to the prime minister and elsewhere.

UNITED STATES

Clinton cancels trip

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has canceled her trip to Morocco this week for a meeting on the future of Syria’s opposition because of a stomach virus, the State Department said on Monday. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns will travel to the meeting in her place. “Since she’s still under the weather, we’ll be staying put this week instead of heading to North Africa and the Middle East as originally planned,” State Department spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Rioters battle police

Rioters in Belfast pelted police with gasoline bombs on Monday in the latest violence to flare up over a decision by the city’s council not to fly the British flag all year round. Officers were targeted on the Upper Newtownards Road near the offices of the east Belfast Member of Parliament Naomi Long, a member of the non-sectarian Alliance Party, who has been warned her life is under threat. Police said they were treating the attack as attempted murder.

RUSSIA

Putin wants Heroes of Labor

President Vladimir Putin on Monday suggested the country should revive the Hero of Labor title, a highly coveted Soviet-era award established in the early years of the USSR to mobilize workers and increase output. “Of course, I think that it would be good for us to revive the Hero of Labor title, only we need to think, we cannot completely copy the Soviet times,” Putin said at a meeting with his election campaign activists from this year’s presidential election. “We need to turn our attention to the man of labor wherever he works, who does his bit by using both his head and hands,” the 60-year-old president said. “There should be criteria, clear and understandable criteria, not simply for the number of years of work, but for the result, the contribution to the country’s development.” Thousands of Soviet workers earned the coveted title of Hero of Labor under the USSR, enjoying special privileges in society and special status. However the title was discontinued after the fall of the USSR.